Let the Wild Rumpus Start! Your Ideas Wanted!

Posted May 16, 2014 by Marianne McPherson, PhD, MS

Those who teach the Model for Improvement often ask, “What will you do by next Tuesday?” It’s a quick way of jump starting the rapid testing that is one of the hallmarks of improvement science. At the end of this post, I offer a “next Tuesday” challenge.

Today, Peter Gloor, founder of the concept of Collaborative Innovation Networks (CoIIN), led a session with NICHQ on how to bring more innovation into our work. (His concept is one of the methods at the core of the CoIIN to Reduce Infant Mortality, the expansion of which we are honored to be leading.) Peter shared with us his most simple roadmap for innovation, and it went like this:

Collect crazy ideas.

Select the craziest.

Find people willing to work on the craziest ideas.

Peter is an innovative thinker, to say the least. Yet his approaches are also very grounded and practical.